Localism Bill

We are about to do just that in the Bill. The Government have not waited for legislation and have already un-ring-fenced a lot of the budgets that were constraining local authorities' ability to spend money according to local priorities. The second thing that has kept down local governments in the past 13 years—and, to be fair, in previous times as well—is the seeping of authority and power from directly elected local government, often to regional and unelected quangos. Again, I am delighted that the coalition Government have made an early start in that respect as well. The thing that I particularly want to highlight as having stifled local government's ability to represent the needs of local communities is the unbearable regulation and the bureaucratic tick-box exercise that local government was forced to go through. When I was a local authority leader, I asked my officers to put an audit code next to every item of expenditure that related to that bureaucratic tick-box exercise and at the end of the financial year I was astounded and shocked to see that my local authority had spent more than £1 million just on going through an unnecessary exercise that often had little relevance to the needs of my local community. Not one penny of that £1 million went to provide a book in one of our libraries. [Interruption.] My Conservative local authority has just opened a new library and I am delighted about that. Not one penny of that £1 million went to provide a personal computer on a desk in one of our schools or to provide a home care package for a vulnerable or elderly individual. Not one penny of it was spent on fire service call-outs or any other front-line service that the local authority for which I was responsible wanted to deliver. The Bill represents a radical shift and a turning around of priorities. Instead of top-down, Whitehall control, there will be bottom-up control whereby individuals, local communities and democratically elected and accountable local government can provide those services. Where government is more transparent and more accountable at all levels, it is more efficient. Given the disastrous economic situation we have been bequeathed by the previous Government, that is something we need to achieve. One issue that I would like Ministers to clarify is the way in which European Union fines for air pollution, for example, may be divided up. My constituency and local authority include Gatwick airport—the nation's second-largest airport and the world's busiest one-runway, two-terminal airport—as well as a significant section of the M23. As a former local authority leader, I am once bitten, twice shy when it comes to local government formulae and I am interested to know how the formula for dividing such fines will operate so that it does not militate against local authorities with national assets such as airports and other facilities in their area. Broadly, the Bill is to be greatly welcomed. It has often been said that when this country gave up its empire, Whitehall, in an effort to find things to do, simply turned its attention inwards and decided that instead of administering Nigeria or India it had better administer Norwich or Ipswich. The Bill represents, for the first time, a freeing up of control and greater self-determination for our local communities in the same way as other nations achieved self-determination at the end of the British empire. I appreciate having had the House's time, Mr Deputy Speaker.